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 Editorials | Issues | December 2007 
A Sense of Panic Amid a Wave of Violence
 Pablo Jaime Sáinz - San Diego Union-Tribune
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Tijuana – The wave of violence that's sweeping through Mexican regional music will change the face of this genre that's so often linked to drug trafficking. After the slayings in less than a week of Sergio Gómez, singer and leader of K-Paz de la Sierra, José Luis Aquino, a trumpet player for Los Conde, and singer Zayda Peña of Zayda y los Culpables, the industry has been shaken to its core, creating a feeling of panic among performers and audiences alike.
“All of this really freaks people out,” said Ricardo López “El Bronco,” a disc jockey at La Invasora 94.5 FM. “People are even afraid of going to shows because shots might be fired.”
López, who hosts an afternoon program featuring corridos at La Invasora, said some artists are going to avoid performing in places where other singers have been killed, among them the state of Tamaulipas, where popular banda singer Valentín Elizalde was killed a little over a year ago and Peña was slain Dec. 2. “The most affected will be the audiences who live in those places. They won't be able to see their favorite singers in concert.”
In Tijuana last year, members of the group Explosión Norteña were shot at, and this October, the group's singer, Alberto Cervantes Nieto, was arrested along with suspected gunmen for the Tijuana Cartel at a local restaurant. Even so, this city has yet to witness acts as violent as the slayings of Elizalde and Gómez.
“Tijuana is still a place that respects entertainers,” said López.
Jorge Hernández, accordion player and leader of the legendary Tigres del Norte, said everybody loses when violence is directed at singers.
“I think it's a pretty serious problem,” he said on the phone from Guatemala, where his band is staging concerts this week. “The music suffers every time something like this happens, and it affects us emotionally as people.”
López said there has yet to be an increase in the amount of La Invasora listeners asking for songs by K-Paz de la Sierra, something that did happen in the days following the killing of Elizalde.
That might be due to a difference in musical styles.
“In this area (San Diego and Tijuana), the pasito duranguense isn't as popular as banda sinaloense,” said the DJ.
In almost every case of homicide of regional musicians, the main line of inquiry concerns the artists' suspected ties to drug trafficking.
But López said, “The authorities, just so they can avoid a long investigation, immediately say the slain artists had ties to organized crime. It's the easiest thing to do.”
K-Paz de la Sierra's representative, also named Sergio Gómez, told Mexican television the singer had no ties to drug trafficking, although he had received death threats a few days before his slaying.
The singer, who was killed after a show in his native state of Michoacán, will be buried in Indianapolis, since he lived more than half his life in the United States and his children live there.
This year, K-Paz de la Sierra performed at the Mexican Independence Day event at the Del Mar Fairgrounds.
Los Tigres del Norte, the band that first popularized narcocorridos in the 1970s, will not stop playing those songs because of the violence, said Hernández. “Corridos tell a story, and it's up to the public to decide what's right and what's wrong. Mexican corridos tell the story of people who create and destroy, that the public can love or hate. We can't stop recording corridos. We'll keep going forward, doing what we've always done.”
Although K-Paz de la Sierra didn't perform narcocorridos and was better known for its danceable ballads, the slaying of the group's leader could be the lyrics to a hardcore corrido.
Late last Sunday, the singer left the venue where he'd just performed accompanied by two business associates, but they were intercepted by 10 SUVs. The two associates were released unharmed.
Gómez's body was found on a country road and showed signs of torture, including burn marks on his legs and bruising on his abdomen and thorax. Officials said he was strangled.
Zayda Peña was also executed. She first was shot in the neck in Matamoros, Tamaulipas. The following day, as she recovered from surgery for |
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